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SAP SuccessFactors HCM vs Sage People comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 22, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Sage People
Ranking in Cloud HCM
19th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Benefits Administration (17th), Talent Management (24th), HR Analytics Software (8th), Talent Acquisition (16th)
SAP SuccessFactors HCM
Ranking in Cloud HCM
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
4.3
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of Sage People is 1.7%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP SuccessFactors HCM is 1.2%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud HCM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP SuccessFactors HCM1.2%
Sage People1.7%
Other97.1%
Cloud HCM
 

Featured Reviews

Spencer Gray - PeerSpot reviewer
People Advisor at Thomas International
Highly customizable, robust, and access to helpful online community
In my opinion, the performance management module of this system could use improvement as it falls behind compared to other specialized performance management platforms. While I understand that this system is not solely focused on performance management and is more of a generalist solution, it still lacks the capabilities and features that you can find in other specialized platforms. If we were to switch to a provider solely focused on performance management, we would have access to a wider range of features and capabilities that are not currently available in this system. Sage People offers a wide range of functions that meet most requirements. However, there is still room for improvement. One feature that I would like to see added is the ability to detect and address any failures in the custom processes or functions built within the system. I would like to see a tool that can automatically sense and identify any issues in the system. Currently, when something goes wrong, it's not always immediately obvious and requires a lot of manual troubleshooting. It would be helpful if there was an error message that clearly explained why the system is failing. This would speed up the investigation process and make it ten times faster.
Stuti Ghosh - PeerSpot reviewer
VP – Skills Architecture And Management at Standard Chartered Bank
Unified talent workflows have streamlined performance reviews and continuous feedback
Based on my experience with SAP SuccessFactors HCM, there are a lot of improvements needed. They are improving definitely, but SAP SuccessFactors HCM needs a lot more integrated flow of data and information across different modules because it is sitting in a lot of places. The biggest improvement is that SAP SuccessFactors HCM is very plain and vanilla and is not very engaging in terms of UI/UX. From a UI/UX perspective, it is not very intuitive. You need to know where to go and navigate and what information is sitting there. Therefore, we have to do a lot of change management education, a lot of guidance work, and a lot of change management to get higher adoption and engagement on the platform. Something that would be really intuitive could fit better with the flow.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Without a doubt, the most valuable aspect of this solution is the reports, as it offers endless possibilities for report customization. You can easily build any report you can imagine with this system."
"The reporting features are also very valuable because, on top of 300+ reports available on the system, you can also customize quite a number of reports."
"The technical support is astounding and they are one of the best support teams I have had the pleasure to work with."
"The report builder and dashboard builder are very, very good."
"The most valuable feature of Sage People is the integration with our payroll system."
"We are now able to visualize global team structures, and as we rollout other features, the organization will benefit from an easy to use system and standard processes."
"Compared to the other system that we were using, I think Sage is more friendly. As an administrator, Sage's dashboard is visually friendly and many tasks are easier to accomplish. Another feature that we've liked since we started using Sage is the reporting. With the other system, we needed to configure a lot of things manually when it came to reporting, but with Sage the reporting tasks are much simpler."
"The solution's initial setup was straightforward."
"Using SAP SuccessFactors HCM analytics and insights helps my customers in data-driven decision-making."
"The SAP SuccessFactors HCM tool is a fantastic platform to work with, offering end-to-end employee lifecycle coverage."
"The employee experience management tools have had a very positive impact on employee satisfaction and well-being within our organization."
"The feature I appreciate the most about this solution is the integration with SAP S/4HANA system."
"Regarding how SAP SuccessFactors HCM has helped my organization, we have timelines that work with the platform in terms of when we set up our goals and record them, performance reviews, check-ins, and everything work seamlessly."
"SAP SuccessFactors HCM has positively impacted my customer's environment by ensuring they are digital; we promote using DocuSign for document signing and ensuring effective onboarding, and post-implementation we provide hyper-care and digital adoption reports after six months or a year to show how much more paperless and workflow-enabled their organization has become after SAP SuccessFactors HCM implementation."
 

Cons

"The integration with our payroll system could improve. However, it is managed by another company."
"Within the absence screens, we have it set up to automatically allow up to five days holiday to carry over. If staff members are allowed to carry over, it’s a bit difficult to add it in easily."
"In comparison with other HRIS reporting tools (like Discoverer / OBIEE for Oracle, Business Objects, Crystal Reports etc. which I have used extensively for over 10 years), I think that Fairsail’s reports functionality is quite limited and only available for Administrator profiles."
"The product lacks several features available in more mature products."
"The user interface is not great."
"Its stability could be better."
"There were a couple of things that we wanted to customize, but we couldn’t do it ourselves."
"In my opinion, the performance management module of this system could use improvement as it falls behind compared to other specialized performance management platforms."
"The reporting part is quite weak in SAP SuccessFactors HCM because the drill-down capabilities are not what a customer wants compared to what it offers."
"The main area for improvement would be implementing a better pricing model. It is expensive, and with people discussing Workday more frequently, SAP needs to compete by becoming more free-flowing and dynamic compared to traditional SAP systems."
"It is very difficult to purchase SAP SuccessFactors HCM over here for smaller or medium-sized organizations, mainly because of the price."
"The SAP SuccessFactors HCM has room for improvement in terms of product development nimbleness. Additionally, the speed of the application platform occasionally reduces, primarily due to data center related issues."
"Based on my experience with SAP SuccessFactors HCM, there are a lot of improvements needed."
"The pricing of the solution is very high concerning pricing, setup cost, and licensing of this tool."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe we pay licensing on a yearly basis, but I can't comment on the total amount that we pay on licensing."
"There is other software on the market that can do similar functions to Sage People that could be better in price. Some solution allows you to do your payroll processes by month or by the process. Small companies could benefit by using another solution."
"From an SME standpoint, I wouldn't necessarily describe it as expensive. However, for the average startup, it may not be affordable since our current annual expenditure on the system, which supports approximately 210-220 users, amounts to approximately £15,000 to £18,000."
"We have to purchase the solution's license to use it."
"I think it's reasonably priced. But in comparison to other systems, I would choose them over Sage People, regardless of their prices."
"Its cost is moderate for a multi-group licensing model."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
15%
Construction Company
15%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Educational Organization
12%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise6
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP SuccessFactors HCM?
The pricing of SAP SuccessFactors HCM is a bit expensive; its HCM without SuccessFactors was reasonable when it was on-site, but SuccessFactors is very expensive. On-premise HCM was good regarding ...
What needs improvement with SAP SuccessFactors HCM?
Based on my experience with SAP SuccessFactors HCM, there are a lot of improvements needed. They are improving definitely, but SAP SuccessFactors HCM needs a lot more integrated flow of data and in...
What is your primary use case for SAP SuccessFactors HCM?
I have hands-on experience with SAP SuccessFactors HCM and we use different modules. As an HR person, I work from that side of the platform. I am the customer of SAP SuccessFactors HCM. We utilize ...
 

Also Known As

Fairsail
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rocketship Education, Monitise, u-blox, SolarWinds, Mitsubishi, SmartStream, Canonical, Betfair
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP SuccessFactors HCM vs. Sage People and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.